Galileo Church

We seek and shelter spiritual refugees, rally health for all who come, and fortify every tender soul with the strength to follow Jesus into a life of world-changing service.

5860 I-20 service road Fort Worth, TX 76119 USA

(682) 760-1274

OUR MISSIONAL PRIORITIES:

1. We do justice for LGBTQ+ humans, and support the people who love them.

2. We do kindness for people with mental illness and in emotional distress, and celebrate neurodiversity.

3. We do beauty for our God-Who-Is-Beautiful.

4. We do real relationship, no bullshit, ever.

5. We do whatever it takes to share this good news with the world God still loves.

Trying to find us IRL?
Mail here: P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060
Worship here: 5 pm CT Sundays; 5860 I-20 service road, Fort Worth 76119

Trying to find our Sunday worship livestream?
click here!

Higher

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In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to a way of life that is on a higher plane than any of us imagined we could live. (Indeed, some scholars have said this sermon is only for super-disciples, not regular people. Bullhockey.) We’ll read long chunks of the sermon and talk about the “higher calling” for Christian living.

We have just started our Sermon on the Mount series -- Jesus talks a lot in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and we'll read every word over five weeks. It's answering a higher call, it's taking the high road, it's "a higher plane than I have found," in the words of the honky-tonk gospel song. With thanks to M. Myer-Boulton's essays in Feasting on the Gospels for Matthew 5:1-16. And also Janis Joplin.

It will take 6 whole minutes to read the Six Antitheses in Matthew 5:17-48, where Jesus says, six times, "You have heard it said...But I say unto you...". It will take a lifetime to live into those words. With thanks to the Bible & Beer group for helping me work through this, especially that stuff about the "right hand..." And with thanks to Steven Eason's essay in Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, vol. 1  for helping me think about the kind of church we would be, all together now, if we took these words seriously.

Yeah, we literally wore colorful plastic party masks during most of this worship service, waiting eagerly to remove them when the time was right. Erin James-Brown's sermon from Matthew 6:1-18, where Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of religious practices performed for show, got us there. Thanks, Erin, for being good at what you do: listening for God's subtle word and bringing it to our ears and hearts.

"Don't worry," Jesus says, Matthew 6:19-34. But can it be true? That God provides, for real, everything we need? Do you believe that? Have you ever seen it? If you stopped working right now, like the lilies or the birds, how long would your pantry stay full? How long would you get to keep your apartment, or your house? What can this mean? We worked on it pretty hard, and let The Decemberists have the last word: "The neighbor's blessed burden...becomes burden borne of all in one. Don't carry it all." Give it a listen after the sermon, here. (Our congregational cover sounded even better.)

Here's the conclusion of our contemplation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 7, this time, the whole nightmarish chapter. Just listen -- you'll see what I mean.